A critical review of local and world news. This blog originally commented on the Moncton Times and Transcript but has enlarged its scope.

Monday, January 4, 2016

Jan. 4: Time's a'wasting.

The lead story in a
wretched four pages – count them – four – of what is grandly
called the Canada and

World section –
and the lead is “Christmas never came for victims of massacre”.
It's very heart-wrenching.

The reference, of
course, is to the 14, good Americans killed by those terrible Muslims
at a Christmas barbecue in San Bernardino. True. Christmas never came
for them. Nor did it come for the thousand or so Americans killed by
American Christians all over the U.S. in the past year. But they
don't get a mention. Nor is there mention of the thousands killed by
American bombers all over the world – nor of the hundredds of
thousands killed by weapons supplied by the U.S.( which exports more
weapons to just about anybody than any other country in the world).

(Hey. Look on the
good side. War and terror are good for the U.S. arms industry.
Britain does well at it, too. And, like the U.S., it's not choosy
about who it sells to.)

Then there's the
uncounted thousands who have drowned or died of hunger as they fled
from the horror we have made or the middle east. And there's the
millions, hungry and cold, in refugee camps. But they don't observe
Christmas, so who gives a damn?

A lead story in such
a section is about something important happening in the world. It is
not a place for self-righteous sentimentality Yes. Fourteen people
got killed. Yes. It was terrible. But they are not the only ones who
have been killed in this madness. And, think hard now, most of the
innocent people killed in the last 15 years have not been Americans.
And, for that matter, far, far more Americans have been killed by
Americans over those years.

This is a pretty
stinking piece of journalism. In fact, it really is propaganda. Other
side bad. Our side good. But I don't think it's deliberate
propaganda. It's just the way us humans think. The other side is
always animal and evil and vicious. We are always good.

The reality is that
our side is effectively led by some of the most vicious and greedy
people this world has ever seen. The lords of the weapons industry
just love wars, and they spend big money on candidates like Hillary
Clinton and Tony Blair who get personally wealthy by making sure
there's a constant demand for their weapons. The oil barons love war
as a way to control world oil and world oil prices. The trick is to
make the taxpayers pay for and fight in the wars that benefit only
the oil barons. To get suckers on that massive scale, you have to
make them believe they're doing it for God and country.

It's not hard to make people believe, not when big oil and big mining
own all the private news media. And that's what brought us that
asinine lead story in the Canada and World section.

There is still no mention of the slaughter and starvation of the
people in Yemen, no mention of which civilians and children the U.S.
drones are bombing these days, nothing about constant U.S.
interference and murder in Central and South America, nothing about
the behaviour of our mining companies around the world. In fairness,
there is a story that a hotel in Dubai which was damaged in a
fireworks display will be repaired. This is important news for those
New Brunswickers who have a reservation at that hotel in Dubai.

The Guardian has an
interesting opinion column about the current US political debates. In
brief, it says that Americans are looking to preserve their ideal of
what the U.S. is and stands for. The reality is that such ideals
never really existed. Various groups in the U.S. have always been
bigoted. And they can't even agree with each other on who they should
be bigoted against. The U.S. has a vision that it stands for freedom
and democracy. It never has. For over a century after the revolution,
Africans were still slaves. And they never did get full freedom or
equality. American women didn't get freedom and the right to vote
until more than a year after the slaves were 'freed'. It has
actually destroyed democracies in Latin America and Africa to impose
dictators. It sees itself as a land yearning for peace. The reality
is that it has been at war for most of its history. And it is surely
one of the most backward countries in the western world when it comes
to equality of opportunity and of education. And one of the most
backward in social programmes.

Nobody even mentions
the problems of its economic system. The first problem is that the
economic system runs the country. It's supposed to be the other way
around. As well, the economic system and the people who control it
have also run up the biggest national deficits in world history. So
it is that a tiny number of Americans are getting very rich while
tens of millions, probably something close to a hundred million live
in wretched poverty. But, with the exception of Bernie Sanders, none
of the candidates is even mentioning this.

Preserving the U.S.
as it is – well – it's beyond stupidity and approaching insanity.
But with the help of mythical history and cooperative news media,
the country which has more secret police than any other, that
tortures on a massive scale, that has given its presidents the right
to imprison and even assassinate American citizens, that has more
prisoners than any other country in the world still sings “God
bless America, land of the free...”

The U.S. desperately
needs fundamental changes if it is to survive. It is most unlikely to
get them.

It's also nonsense
to say, as Norbert often does, that easing taxes on the rich will
attract investment and general prosperity. The reality is that
lowering taxes on the rich has made all of us poorer. (That's even
leaving aside the reality that so many of the very rich pay no taxes
at all.)

I'll quote the end
of Alec Bruce's column to get at the only solution of our problems.

“...if we, the
people, don't run New Brunswick's democracy – if we cede it to
special interests and political expediency, then we risk becoming
another state in crisis.

And then, what are
our choices?”

I am not suggesting
that Bruce and I would be in agreement on economic matters. I have no
idea what the details of his views are. But I think the principal
of the statement above is true. However, I would go further to say we
already have ceded our democracy to special interests and political
expediency. The Liberals and Conservatives do not represent our
interests. They never have. Both of those parties in Canada were
created to serve the rich. And Canadians have supported those two
parties in almost every election, federal or provincial, that has
ever been held.

And it's the
Canadian people who have had the flabby minds. New Brunswickers, in
particular, really don't like the think. And they're terrified of
expressing an opinion in public. That makes them easy meat for a
newspaper that tells them nothing but trivia.

The rest of Canada
is not much better. That's why the old CCF party (which was a party
of genuine change) had to water itself down to become an honest
version of the Liberal party. And that's not enough. As for the
Greens, they are tackling a serious and neglected issue. But that's
not enough to govern a country on.

We have to do some
thinking. We have to make it a point to get and make known
information that we all need to make decisions. We have to get back a
real democracy in this country.

And we don't have much time to do it.

For a full page of
intelligent stories and opinions of Bernie Sanders' campaign for the
democrat leadership, check out the site below. (There certainly
hasn't been much of it in the Irving press.)

Page A9 has the
story of an addition to St. Thomas University's department of
journalism. She's Ros Guggi, a jounalist of considerable experience.
She speaks in this story of the purpose and ethics of journalism.
Generally, journalism schools across Canada teach to a high standard
of ethics. Alas, too many graduates learn that to get a job, they
have to be flexible in their ethics. (I could do many blogs about
highly paid and well-known journalists who willingly write propaganda
instead of news.)

You may remember the
story of the American army truck driver, a woman, who was serving in
Iraq (I think. Maybe Afghanistan). Her truck crashed at an enemy
roadblock, and she was seriously injured.

That night, a U.S.
special ops squad carried out an attack on the hospital to save her,
it was implied, from rape and worse. I remember it well because I saw
the attack on TV. I saw the troops storming the hospital, pushing
hospital workers aside. I could see them well because a row of
powerful lights had been set up for the cameras, and for the dozens
of reporters – who were telling the story to us as it happened.

They told us that
she had fought hard, shooting a dozen or so of her attackers. They
told us the special ops raiders had scared the enemy off, so they
could whisk the injured woman to an American hospital which was much
better, of course, (and in which she wouldn't be raped.)

The story was
everywhere. She was promoted as a heroine for holding off the enemy
despite her injuries; and the U.S. special ops were praised for their
– oh – their Americanism. A park was named after her. Publishers
wanted her to write a book. But….

She was also honest.
Despite tremendous government pressure, she told the truth. She
hadn't shot anybody. She couldn't even if she wanted to because she
was badly injured. Nobody had mistreated her. She was immediately
brought to a hospital, and she was well-treated – probably saving
her life. There were no soldiers guarding the hospital. They left as
soon as they brought her there. The American command was notified of
all the facts, was invited to send an ambulance for her, was told
their were no guards and that the enemy would not interfere in any
way.

Anybody watching the
TV programme should have realized this was a set-up. You don't bring
reporters with cameras and super lights to cover a surprise raid. The
news media must have known this was a set-up. But they all went along
with it.

And the woman? As
soon as she told the truth, she because a non-person to the news
media.

Oh, the new Journalism chair at St. Thomas is funded by a generous
donor. It's called the The Irving Chair in Journalism. I wish her
luck.

Finally, the Gallant
government's treatment of Dr. Cleary in firing her as chief medical
officer is contemptible. And the failure of the news media in digging
on this story is contemptible. And the failure of New Brunswickers to
respond is the reason why so many contemptible things happen in this
province.

The government says
it can't tell us why she was fired. But it has told us. It has told
us she was fired because she didn't fit the skills profile
required for the job. An honest and ethical press would answer,
“Okay. Exactly what are the skills she doesn't have? And why has it
taken so many years for governments to learn she doesn't have them?”
To that, we might add the question of why the Irving press has not
been more active in collecting the opinions of leading medical
authorities across Canada who seem to have a very high regard for her
skills? So all those leading authorities know less about medical
skills than Mr. Gallant does?

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About Me

born into poverty in Montreal. (1933 was a bad year to be born.) Kicked out of school in grade 11. Became factory hand, office boy.
Did a general BA, mostly at night at Sir George Williams University, and partly while a youth worker for YMCA, camps, etc. Then teacher training at McGill.
Taught gradea 7 to 11 for six years. Loved it.
Quit to do MA at Acadia, then PhD (History) at Queen's.
Taught history three years at UPEI, then some 35 years at Concordia U in Montreal.
Loved the teaching. Thought the profs had more pompous and useless asses among then than is really desirable outside a zoo.
work experience:
factory, office,social group work, office,camp director, teacher.
Radio - c. 3000 broadcasts, mostly current events.
TV - many hundred appearances, mostly commentaries.
Film - some writing, advising, voice-overs.
Writing - no count, some hundreds. Some academic, but mostly for popular market, and ranging from short stories to stories to newspaper and magazine columns to history books.
professional speaker - close to 2000.
Awards for the above? yep